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Mr Lickley said: "The course is not one I had anticipated. We ask for more time given what has just occurred."

Dennehy, who sat in the dock of the court, said she did not want to talk to anyone and added: "I have pleaded guilty and that's it."

She also pleaded guilty to three counts of preventing the lawful burial of all three murder victims.

Her partner, 7ft 3inches tall Gary Stretch, 47, denied the two attempted murders and helping Dennehy to dump the bodies.

Gary Stretch and Joanna Dennehy

Leslie Layton, 47, and Robert Moore, 55, have previously denied helping to cover up the alleged murders and harbouring Stretch and Dennehy when they were wanted by police. Their trial is due in January.

Property developer Mr Lee was discovered on the morning of March 30 in a ditch by the A16 at Newborough.

A post-mortem examination later showed the 48-year-old died as a result of stab wounds to the chest.

Four days later on April 3 police were called to Fenland field in Thorney, near Peterborough, after a member of the public stumbled across the bodies of Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman.

Mr Slaboszewski had been stabbed in the heart. John Chapman was stabbed in the neck and chest.

It is said Mr Slaboszewski was murdered between March 19 and 29, while both Mr Chapman and Mr Lee were allegedly killed on March 29.

The two attempted murders were said to have happened on April 2.

Dennehy objected to her lawyers being given more time to check her guilty pleas, saying: "I'm not coming back down here again just to say the same stuff. It's a long way to come to say the same thing I have just said.'

Mr Justice Sweeney noted: "She has pleaded guilty to a large number of counts, clearly intentionally, and in the circumstances if there is to be any application for a change than I will consider it but otherwise she has pleaded guilty."

The judge ordered that Dennehy's defence team notify the court by Monday if there is to be any application to vacate the pleas entered.